NULLIUS IN VERBA

It's 2009.

I am in the woods with a group of homeless people, I had been hanging with them all summer. 

It's Florida, so it's hot and humid and there is going to be an afternoon thunderstorm.

I brought water and a new tent and some Wendy's for this one guy named Benny.

He wasn't much older than me. 

His girlfriend was pregnant, so I was taking him to the library to apply for jobs.

We jumped in my Ford Explorer. I had a 12inch JL Audio sub in the back connected to my Pioneer CD player, I ran a cable to the middle console so my iPod wouldn't be showing.

Benny always appreciated that setup.  

This is what religion looks like to me.

That is what it meant to a 21 year old to be a pastor.

The next year I had my first pastoral job.

I remember our meetings about reaching the city and helping people in need, as we drove downtown to the new trendy coffee spot with our skinny jeans and MacBooks and planned to do things for god.

I remember my idealistic faith in that moment, my genuine confusion:

I know where the people live who you want to help, I know how to talk to them, you just have to walk into the woods.

Then I realized these men, on their own, had never wandered spiritually. 

They had never entered the woods, both symbolically and literally. 

Call me a purist, idealist, cocky, or a sinner.

I had genuine spiritual moments as a teenager.

Genuine enough to know these guys weren’t pastors, and they hadn’t experienced what they were preaching and singing about. 

Their faith gave them a salary and a career and nothing more. 

I had spiritual encounters so pure that I could see straight through the bullshit of my own job of being a pastor. 

“First ethical rule: If you see fraud and do not say fraud, you are a fraud.” 

― Nassim Taleb, Antifragile: Things That Gain From Disorder

I had encounters that changed me, ones that altered my heart.

My calling has always been to people on a journey. 

Just as I am. 

Spirituality takes place with firsthand experience, and spiritual leaders can only lead you to where they have been. 

And I had been to places these men only read about.

“Every major religion has done the same. This preoccupation with religion as an ideology leads to over-identification with the group, its language and symbols. Group loyalty becomes the test rather than loyalty to God or truth.” 

― Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

I just wanted to help people like Benny, I didn’t care about hanging out with other Christians that needed so much to do so little.

Or listen every week to pastors that said so little (or the same things) with so many words. 

We know not to take financial advice from advisors with bad debt.

We know not to take fitness advice from trainers who are out of shape.

I knew not to take advice from pastors without spirituality. 

Since I wasn’t supposed to lean on my own understanding, I ignored all the signs. God forbid (that’s probably why he does) I judge people by their fruit and my own experiences.

That is the most ironic part about the Pharisees.

They live in a world they can always be right about.

It’s always the other person who can’t see.

They had religious experiences, not spiritual.

They hadn’t been in the woods.

They didn’t even know where to look.

They were men that only gained reputation by their beliefs, but their beliefs didn’t cost them anything. 

It only gave them status.

They were one sermon away from upsetting high paying tithe members, no different than any other CEO having to answer for their actions, low profits, or company performance.

I was told I should lower my expectations. 

Why?

I have no problem meeting my own expectations. 

This is my standard.

One I have been able to live by.

How could I take your word for it?

NULLIUS IN VERBA

It’s like a business professor teaching about business.

It’s like when Seinfeld tells a group of students that it’s a bad sign that you are in a comedy class. You probably aren’t that funny if you are here.*

When I quit my job it was to wander again.

I was quitting a way of life.

To not have religious hierarchy, my salary, or my time connected to the incompetence of some yes man’s ego.

Ego is certainty in information and not experience.

It’s the difference between theory and experimentation.

It’s the difference between taking a flight or a road trip, spending a day in a city, compared to a week, compared to a month. 

Ego is you being a tourist in your own experiences.

Ego is you being right about things you have never seen.

I hope you and your family are well, Benny.

*Convo with Steve Harvey in Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee